Despite the challenges, we were seeing free and democratic Iraq, we were
living the hard laboring moment we believe that every one of us has
duty towards our beloved country. By our hands, work, thoughts, sacrifice
we will build up the new Iraq.

For the animal shall not be measured by man. In a world older and more complex than ours they move finished and complete, gifted with extensions of the senses we have lost or never attained. They are not brethren, they are not underlings; they are other nations, caught with ourselves in the net of life and time, fellow prisoners of the splendour and travail of the earth.

Always look in the Table of Contents on your right in the green column to find the post you want to read.

On Being Persuasive

Men for Hillary has been so kind to this blog that I am rethinking the words Male Identified. Even though it is longer, I am going to start saying patriarchal identified or male left/right identified. There are so many women on the web who self-identify as feminist and actually are constantly arguing for policy which helps men exploit women or keeps women in inferior positions. All their arguments are from male left positions or worse(from the porn industry) and then few and far between, there are men who I think are doing advanced feminism.

You can tell who the women are -- they had a hard time deciding who to vote for but they went for BO. They have probably all their lives, when the chips were down, gone with the Man and succeeded in life because of the accommodations they made. Who can blame them? Go along to get along. So when a man like that Lannie guy or Men for Hillary speaks out it is striking. There is something about men who give up privilege to work for women that I like. Just like the POC who are working for Hillary because they remember how she worked for them. It touches you and you realize this is your family and everybody can be there.

Anyway, Men for Hillary,(MFH) is a reader of Echidne of the Snakes as am I. Echidne, whose gender is not revealed and who is possibly the most brilliant of all feminist bloggers, (as is Chesler) also has a list of amazing embroideries and a permanent post on statistics that is valuable. In fact Echidne has several bloggers on that site and everyone of them is amazing and refreshing. MFH recommends reading Echidne's post on research there this week. But I became lost in another post on the cult expose in Texas, "Meanwhile in Texas". This is the post.

I couldn't help thinking that they offer an extreme example of something which happens fairly often: the clashing of religious and human or individual rights. Consider that Jeffs' sect practices polygamy for reasons that they regard as religious. Then consider the consequences of this practice: young girls being forced to marry much older men, young boys thrown away as surplus to the needs of a polygamous society.

Yes, the above example is an extreme one. But milder versions of these clashes of rights happen all the time, and one important role for the government and the court system is to decide how to weigh one group of rights against another group of rights.

An example of a Supreme Court case which favored the religious rights is Wisconsin v. Yoder. That case, in 1972, decided that

Amish children could not be placed under compulsory education past 8th grade, as it violated their fundamental right to freedom of religion.

I doubt that it was the Amish children who pursued this case or that those same children were then free to have as much elective education as they wished once they had finished eight grade. No, the decision was not about the children's rights but about the rights of a religious community to survive...

Reading this I thought of that day in law school where I argued this was a bad decision and was ridiculed by my classmates. I tried to argue that denying children socialization with others and denying children exposure to the resources of the broader culture is denying them a human right. Denying the children the ability to learn how to survive in the world is slavery legitimized. It means they can never escape the cult and that violates the children's freedom to choose their own religion.

Yes, the Amish let the children live a few months in the world to decide if they want to come back to the community but the children have only an eighth grade education and no way to survive in the world. So that is no choice at all.

In the US, under the broad rights granted to religious sects, men do not have to buy slaves anymore, they just breed them under the banner of religious freedom. The ACLU will defend them as they do for the Man Boy Love Ass(holes).

I thought of the Amish and Mennonites here in WI. The Mennonite being the owners of the most notoriously abusive puppy mills in the US. Yes, right here in Wisconsin. They populate the Thorp dog auctions where dogs are treated the way they are treated in China.

...READ ABOUT HOW THEY MAKE THEIR FILTHY TAX EXEMPT RELIGIOUS MONEY HERE, see the greenconsciousness post under the first picture paragraph.

I am still brought to tears by what we saw that day. The splendor and luxury of that home was amazing.

And it was at a Mennonite residence. I'm still trying to reconcile what I had always perceived as a quiet, non-imposing, deeply religious group of people with a puppy mill business. I guess assumptions are always dangerous. After all, this group of people that I believed had always shunned progress had a fax machine in their puppy barn.

The religious slave cults are tax exempt. All that FLDS cult land - homes built with child labor - fields farmed with child labor - property - the entire compound tax exempt, while the men rape slave women and children. Teach the children to beat disobedient mothers, allow jealous wives beat other wives. Instruct women to beat other women while the family watches.

The Amish's horses hooves on those quaint buggies bleeding onto the roads. The boys working the fields from childhood - no schooling, no way to get free. The radio shows with breathless hosts gushing about the quaint, simple people and their "spiritual" way of life. The animal abuse-women abuse- child abuse -- all tax exempt and under the blanket of religion.

All under the banner of religious rights THAT WE ARE SUPPOSED TO BALANCE WITH HUMAN RIGHTS according to the man's law, the laws written by men. When did organizations get equal status with human rights? What kind of patriarchal crap made that acceptable? The religious rights of the parents are more important than the health and safety rights of the children. Only when they are 18 and ruined for life do they get any rights, worthless at that point.

It has already started. NPR today, worried about religious freedom. A patriarchy-identified person I have known a long time saying, "Oh there was no phone call - the police made that up" -- parroting the bright boys line, the ACLU lawyer's line, the patriarch's defense atty's line, to get the warrants thrown out and the women/children returned. She was shocked that I would find that offensive. "But I like that the cops did it" she wails.

It could not possibly be true that there was such a call if they are cannot find the girl, although the survivors complain of underground basements and tunnels where one woman was held for three years, troublesome women moved from compound to compound, separated from their children who are raised by more submissive wives.

After 2 beatings the last one breaking her ribs, a hospital report, a trip to a non cult member's house, a borrowed cell phone, a suspicious wife spying on the girl would mean she would be immediately moved. The survivors say the graveyards are filled with children who don't make it. Easier for the patriarchal identified women to believe the story is a lie. Even after she learns most of the 13 year olds are pregnant.

Why am I unable to explain things to people like her anymore? I used to be able to do it. I am afraid I know why. After so much crap, I just cannot connect to loving these patriarchal women anymore. I just see them as "the other" and "the enemy". My hatred is present almost all the time now. They are winning - they own the world.